


A little more silence, a little more time

by LivingInSmilesIsBetter (axm)



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Angst, Finale spec fic, Reveal, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-24 22:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3786565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axm/pseuds/LivingInSmilesIsBetter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>**FINALE SPEC FIC** SPOILERS AHEAD.<br/>He couldn't answer her questions, not about Abigail, and he couldn't tell her about his immortality. All he could do was watch her walk away and wonder how this had all happened. Now he was losing her, not because he had opened up to her, but because he couldn't.<br/>Angsty reveal fic of doom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A little more silence, a little more time

**Author's Note:**

> Oops. My fingers slipped and I wrote angsty finale spec fic. So, spoilers ahead.
> 
> POV changes are intentional.

_Done_. She had said. _Exhausting_.

The tension had sparked like an electric current in the air between them, threatening to ignite as the days turned into weeks. They passed by one another and the area around them became charged. He dared not share an elevator with her. She went out of her way to ensure it was never an option.

She pushed for answers, and he withdrew.

And then she gave up.

Running a weary hand through her loose hair, Jo dipped her chin and clutched at a fistful of strands at the back of her head, releasing the locks as her head lifted her eyes met his.

"I'm done."

"I'm sorry?"

"I'll work with you as much as necessary, but I can't continue like we were anymore, Henry. You don't trust me. Trying to get anything out of you is exhausting."

"You're done?"

Jo nodded. "As hard as this is… Goodbye, Henry."

She turned and walked away, towards the elevator, out of the morgue. "Jo, please." He moved to catch up with her but she only quickened her pace.

"Unless you're planning to actually answer my questions, don't follow me. Just stay here." Her voice held resignation and regret. She stepped into the elevator, punched the button for the precinct floor, and, with sadness clouding her eyes, repeated, "Don't follow me." She held his gaze until the doors closed between them and he stood staring at the cold metal, his own sad eyes reflecting back.

He couldn't answer her questions, not about Abigail, and he couldn't tell her about his immortality. All he could do was watch her walk away and wonder how this had all happened. Now he was losing her, not because he had opened up to her, but because he couldn't.

 

* * *

 It would be two days of missing her before they spoke again, forcibly tugged back together by Adam, even if only for an evening...

* * *

 

 

"Henry what the Hell is happening?"

Jo stood to the side, the two men facing one another down, pistol in Adam's hand, dagger in Henry's, both men holding the weapon most important to the other.

She just didn't understand _why_.

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Try," she pleaded, her voice echoing in the deserted alley, the three hidden away in a dark corner, between abandoned warehouses. Only rats as their witness.

"I could try," Adam suggested, eyes trained hard on Henry, pistol aimed at the ME's chest. "Or I could show her."

"She is to be kept out of this."

"A little too late for that."

"Henry," Jo tried. "Please." Her own weapon was pointed at Adam, ready to take him down should his finger even twitch on the trigger.

The air was palpable, the tension thick and heavy.

"And if it works?" Henry reminded him.

"What are you talking about?" Jo's voice was desperate now, faltering more with each word, and he hated himself, for ever allowing himself to get close to her, to get her tangled up in his mess.

"Maybe you'll die, maybe you'll age, maybe nothing will change. But won't it be fun to find out if this is indeed the last death of Henry Morgan?"

"What does he mean by last death?"

Henry couldn't take his eyes off Adam for a second, all he could do was stay focused, and remain silent in the face of such questions. If he survived this and she never spoke to him again, he would deserve that.

"I grow tired of waiting," Adam remarked. He shifted his aim, and fired. With lightning speed, Henry shoved Jo out of the way of the bullet that would end her life, and caught it in his chest. The force threw him to the ground. He heard the additional shots fired off as he lay gasping on the ground, heard the moment she took Adam down. And from Jo's own gasp, the moment Adam's body disappeared.

"Henry?" she pleaded, voice low but insistent. "Hold, on, Henry." Kneeling, she applied pressure to his chest and said in a tight voice, "Don't think for a second you're getting out of explaining what just happened."

He just wanted to apologize, over and over. But the pull of death was dragging him away, and he couldn't focus on her tear-stained face anymore.

 

* * *

He wasn't sure he'd be coming back from this one...

* * *

 

She was going to kill him.

Discharging her service weapon a second time meant even more paperwork, so it was unlikely she would shoot him. The idea of beating him to a bloody pulp with her fists was appealing. Or maybe she'd just cover his lips with her own and kiss him until he ran out of air and suffocated.

 _Why do people say that_ , she wondered. _Like it's impossible to breathe through your nose_.

Dragging herself back from the tangent her mind had veered off on, Jo huffed out an annoyed sigh in the back of Abe's car. Arms folded across her chest, chin raised defiantly, body turned away from him, she stared out the window. She refused to look at him.

"I cannot express how sorry I am, Jo."

"Uh, Henry?" Abe's voice floated back to them from behind the wheel. "Let's just hold off until we're out of a confined space and home, okay?"

A corner of Jo's lips twitched in an almost smile, but she managed to take control again and remain stoic.

Henry had died. On the asphalt, the gray stained red with blood seeping out from beneath him. The bullet had torn through him, and nothing would stem the bleeding. Too much blood, from too much damage. His heart had stopped. She'd felt the moment he'd slipped away - and then nothing, literally, just air, for a split second, before her palms connected with the grey concrete. All traces of her partner gone. Everything, except the pocket watch that had come free of him as he'd hit the ground. Kneeling before an empty space, she'd been transfixed by her clean hands, shaking as she held them up in front of her. Between splayed fingers she could see the blurry haze of gray sidewalk, pigeon excrement, chewing gum, and an empty coke can. But no Henry.

 _No Henry_.

He had died.

He had disappeared.

Right after Adam's own disappearing act.

Somehow, in a daze, a conversation she couldn't remember, she had called Abe. He had picked her up and as she'd slid into the warm car her shaking hand had dropped the pocket watch in his palm, despite the man's crazy words about how she should give it to Henry herself. Throughout the ride to the shores of the East River Abe's constant words of reassurance had felt like a joke.

She hadn't cried so openly in almost a year.

Then the bastard had hauled himself out of the murky river, a sheepish expression on his face, shivering and naked as he'd said, "It's a long story."

For the past twenty minutes, after hearing a condensed version of it as he'd tugged the clothes on, she was stuck between anger and relief, between wanting to kill him all over again, and wanting to kiss him.

In the back of the car his hand settled on her knee, a silent plea to get her attention, and she recoiled, she shook it off and slid against the door, curling into it and away from him.

"Henry," Abe warned in a gentle tone.

And then he was smart enough to let her be for the remainder of the drive.

 

* * *

Her heart was too scarred, too easily damaged now. She might need her old friends Jack, Jim, and Jameson tonight...

* * *

 

He tried again, in the relative safety of his home, above the store, Jo refusing to sit on the sofa she'd once slept on, Abe nearby for support, but out of view.

She reached out, just once, and pressed the tips of two fingers to his chest, where he knew her palm had recently been. She had stared blatantly at his bare chest when he had stood before her on the bank of the river, straining her eyes in the darkness to find the wound.

She still expected it to be there, he knew, and that was why he had left the top two buttons of his shirt undone, for her.

Her fingers touched his chest now, through the gap where the material didn't quite come together, but all she found was his heart beating beneath.

That was all: alive, but no wound.

She withdrew her hand, clenched both into fists at her sides, and took a step back.

"I haven't had to do this many times in my life," he began.

Tilting her head, she watched him, silent and angry.

"I'm not very good at it."

She stood with tension radiating off her, merely cocking an eyebrow in response.

"I thought, perhaps, if you didn't know, you'd be safe. I'm sorry, it seems I was wrong."

"No," she said, breaking her silence. "You thought if I didn't know I wouldn't walk away." At his surprised look she added, "Because that's what happens, isn't it, Henry? People struggle with the truth and leave."

"Yes."

"So you chose to lie to me."

He nodded. "Yes."

"Adam isn't dead either, is he?"

"No."

"Does he resurrect in water?"

"Perhaps."

"But not the same place as you?"

"It would seem not, no."

"I have a lot of questions."

"Understandable."

"Will you answer all of them?"

"I'll do my best. I don't have all the answers myself, Jo. But I will tell you what I can."

With that she nodded, and turned away from him. She walked to the door, no explanation, no goodbye, just headed for the stairs down to the store.

He tried to follow, but only then did she stop, and, with her back to him, said, "I need to be alone right now, Henry, but I'm glad you're okay." He heard the tears in her voice, and stayed quiet as she spoke. "I'll call you when I'm ready."

"How long do you anticipate-"

"I don't know," she interrupted, fingers curled around the door handle, back still to him. "I might never be."

Then she tugged the door open, and pulled it closed behind her. He heard her footfalls on the stairs, growing softer as she descended, until he heard the main door to the store open and close, and he knew she was gone.

 

* * *

And he believed he had lost her forever...

* * *

 

**_End._ **


End file.
